MSS: Mike Lewis and Steve Munatones

Mike Lewis and Steve Munatones were on the escort boat alongside Diana Nyad as she attempted to swim from Cuba to Florida. They give eyewitness accounts of Nyad's experience with man-of-war stings, braving a shark sighting and how she reacted to not completing the swim.

Show Transcript: (Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Peter Busch: This is the Morning Swim Show for Wednesday, September 28, 2011. I'm your host, Peter Busch, in the Furnace Monitor Today. We'll talk to Mike Lewis and Steve Munatones. They were both on the board alongside Diana Nyad last week during her latest attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida. Mike and Steve journeys right now in the Furnace Monitor from Huntington Beach California, hey guys, good to have both of you on, how are you doing?

Steve Munatones: Good morning.

Mike Lewis: Good morning, Peter.

Peter Busch: Alright, so it was not a successful attempt for Diana and it sounds like it was quite painful along the way.

Steve Munatones: Go ahead. Mike Lewis: Well, I think success is relative, Peter. Certainly, she didn't reached her goal of swimming from Havana to land in Florida but as we can read the fine success in terms of fortitude and strength and inspiration and fighting through tremendous elements it was amazing, and so like I said success is relative.

Peter Busch: Hey, Steve, the first reports of trouble came when she was stung by the man of - Portuguese Man o'War jellyfish, she kept swimming which Mike appropriately said is pretty inspirational, showed her toughness. But was there any sense that, okay, she's going to be able to finish this race at this point.

Steve Munatones: Well, she was first hit at two hours and 15 minutes on the start and what was not reported in the press, I don't think widely, was that she actually was in the water stationary for over an hour treading water, trying to fight the pain. So here she was swimming, at that point she probably done around five miles swimming quite strongly into the sunset. She gets the hit by Portuguese Man o'War. The scars are just tremendous and she was fighting pain for over an hour. She could move, her lower back was nearly paralyzed. I say nearly because she could still egg beater a little bit but she certainly couldn't kick and that was the first one. So she had a lot of pain to overcome.

Steve Munatones: Well, you know, she - it was always her dream. It was always her dream as a professional marathon swimmer to end her career with a swim that would be "out there." And Cuba, lying 103 miles off the coast to Florida has that sort of magical pizzaz and that was her dream back in the 1970s and she never let it go.

Peter Busch: Mike, do you think she'll try it again?

Mike Lewis: Gee, yeah, with the way she was talking was no, but she's a fighter. She, I was amazed. Peter, I was actually on the watch during that first Man o'War sting, and I personally thought there was absolutely no way that she would continue and like Steve said, for her to tread water to fight through that, to fight through the pain, the agony that she was feeling which, by the way, there was also a support diver who was in the water who went in to help her immediately who was also stung, who was writhing on the deck at the same time. And then, in the large way, he was very, very tough but he was also exhibiting extreme pain, which again caught to her strength. So, someone at that level of strength, even though they may say no, I'm reluctant to give a definitive yes or no.

Peter Busch: Steve, tell me about, we've seen some pretty intense open water swims. Across the coast of California, English Channel, Lake Tahoe, we've seen some intense ones but is this the most challenging that has been attempted?

Steve Munatones: Challenging in terms of overall, yes. I mean there are swims that are in much colder water. Let's say Lynne Cox across the Bering Strait or Louis Pugh at North Pole. There are swims at altitude up in Glacier Lakes in Mount Everest or Lake Tahoe but in terms of everything, in terms of Portuguese Man o'War, sharks, again, Mike and I were on the boat when a four- to five-foot oceanic white tip, the very renowned dangerous shark came up to her. As Mike and I were safely on a boat she had her safety divers literally jump in the water and they were literally looking at this shark eye to eye. You know, Diana at that point was swimming away from the shark but you know, in terms of sharks, jellyfish, distance at 103 miles, however way you look at it, if you're riding the current for a few knots it still going to be over two straight days of constant swimming in tropical heat. So it is, if not the most difficult swim in the world, the swim with the most amount of dangerous element. Because if you were out there and when we pulled Diana we were 67 miles away from the nearest point of land. If anything would have happened it would have taken a long time to get into shore to get her medical help.

Peter Busch: So Mike, is this going to become like the new Everest where, you know, it's not so much whether you make it but how far you can go in the swim and that will be the new bar until eventually somebody successfully completes that entire swim.

Mike Lewis: Well, for this swim, certainly, I think that as Steve just said, here we are 67 miles out, and it wasn't at that point necessarily a function of could she keep going. She wanted to keep going and there was a lot of deliberation as to what to do. There's lots of consultation with navigators and so forth, but it basically came down to the medical personnel saying that it was questionable if she could sustain another attack by Portuguese Man o'War, which was a distinct possibility. So yes, it's going to be a measure, but certainly, when she stopped the determination was really based upon the progress that she was unable to make to cross the Gulf Stream and the fear that there could be something that could bevery, very life threatening.

Peter Busch: What did she do when she was finally pulled out of the water and knew it was over? Did she cry, did she just collapse, describe what that moment was like.

Steve Munatones: At about 92 miles from the point that she started from Cuba but still 67 miles from the closest point to land, her team got together and they said is there a realistic chance of her hitting Florida. At that point there was more possibility of her hitting the Bahamas. That would have taken another at least two more days of swimming. Is any human able to swim under the tropical conditions, under the threat of sharks and jellyfish for four -- up to five straight days, and I think she just came to realization that it was over and she announced that that point she would swim until 50 hours. Everybody cheered and we were going to support her until she reached the point of 50 hours. Shortly after that, she just said, you know, her heart isn't into it, she didn't achieve her goal, she called it a day, she brought five escort boats close to her. She was very gracious, she thanked everybody and there was actually more tears on the boat amongst her supporters than her. She had a goal, she didn't achieve it, she realized it, she thanked everybody and she is now processing that decision to be pulled. But you know, of all the swims that I've been in, she made the right call in my opinion.

Peter Busch: Do you guys think that anyone can do this swim?

Steve Munatones: Me, it certainly won't be done in my lifetime, I don't believe. You would have to have a young - in my opinion, if you're going to do it you would have to have the perfect conditions which in that strait rarely happen. Diana hit two good days, two 48-hour periods where there was glassy flat, very unusual. You would have to have an athlete who could withstand a Portuguese Man o'War. Anybody has been stung by Portuguese Man o'War never forgets it. Anybody who hasn't been hit by a Portuguese Man o'War yet can't imagine the pain. You'll have to withstand sharks and a Gulf Stream that flows very quickly. So I don't believe it in my lifetime we'll see it, we may see it in my children's or grandchildren's lifetime, but it's a monster.

Mike Lewis: I'd like to see it. You know, I'd like to see it but Steve said, everything has to line up perfectly because of - in addition to that the logistics behind this were seemingly insurmountable and that was an amazing fit in and of itself in addition to the athletic accomplishments. That everything from the State Department approvals that needed to be executed for the entire crew to access Cuba and Havana to the flotilla boats, the medical and so forth, it takes a lot of things to line up ideally. I hope we see somebody do it someday but it's going to be a huge challenge.

Peter Busch: And we can't lose either the fact this is a 61-year-old woman. I mean, it's great as she is as an athlete. That's a hell of a challenge for a 25-year-old guy.

Mike Lewis: Well, she's actually 62. She turns 62 between the first attempt in August and this last one here last week.

Steve Munatones: But actually age is to her benefit. Not necessarily 62, but you do need the maturity to actually understand the complexity of what you're going to do. Imagine this: two and a half hours into the swim, five miles from the coast of Havana, she gets hit, she treads the water for an hour, and then she starts to swim again with 98 miles to go. I don't think many 25-year-olds have that the maturity to actually put your head back in the water and say, no, I've got more than two and a half days to swimming, 95 miles to go, I just got stung, I just treaded water for an hour and continue on. So age in this extreme niche of open water swimming I think is to one's advantage.

Mike Lewis: I think additionally too, the fact that that experience played out from the very start. She started out at a very calm and deliberate pace which with all the excitement and enthusiasm was one of the things that struck both Steve and I. And also, this very conscious effort not to look back nor look forward because I would think that a less experienced swimmer may have looked back, seen the lights of Havana at a point at which you would have thought they would have dissipated and completely been demoralized. Her ability in that fortitude was certainly a function experience.

Peter Busch: It takes incredible mental strength not just physical strength to undertake something like that. There's no doubt about it and look, our hats off to her for trying this and if she ever tries it again, we will cheer for her again but I mean, I just, I can't, I don't want people to overlook the fact that I mean, it's really something dangerous that's being attempted here and you know, you're putting your life at risk when you try something like that.

Steve Munatones: Look, not only your life at risk. I mean, there were over 30 people on her support group. Anyone of us could have had an accident on board. You know the waves started to get up there and in fact coming in, back into shore after we pulled her. Coming in the shore, it took us six hours to fight an increasingly strong oncoming tide, I'm sorry, current and winds, it was a lightning storm and guess what, our GPS unit somehow conked out and we were beached. We got boarded, or beached on a sand bar. It was late at night pouring rain. So you had 30 people out there, not only Diana at risk. And because human life is so precious, all of the logistics, operations, safety issues are really a huge obstacle that any swimmer and their team have to overcome to achieve this swim.

Peter Busch: Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, I'd love for one day a Hollywood movie to be made out of this. You know about the underdog who pulled off an amazing feat but I don't want it to be like "Into Thin Air" where half of the people don't come back, you know.

Mike Lewis: Yeah, certainly. And again, I can't do it to the strength of the crew as well. Those boat captains were, they were top notch and that's again to that organization I talked about earlier. She was very conscious in her selection of the best possible people to pilot those boats and it was certainly, yes, risky but hats off to them.

Peter Busch: Mike, Steve, any further, any last observations before I let you go.

Steve Munatones: One thing that was very interesting, when Diana decided to stop the swim she actually didn't know how far she'd swum or how far she went. The only time that she - the only information that she wanted was she wants to know when she was 10 miles off the coast of Florida. So in her mind, she was only going swim or she was going to keep swimming until she reached her goal and it was mind-boggling to me 40 hours after the start, she had no clue how far she'd swum and how far she went to go. That's maturity that this sport requires.

Mike Lewis: And for me, Peter, it was, Steve and I were on the same boat on the return after she came out of the water, and how her mental acuity on the return trip. She actually, after a short period of rest sat in the galley with us and had a very coherent conversation with us analyzing so many different facets and that was just mind-blowing to me. She's a very, very strong woman, very impressive.

Peter Busch: Mike, Steve, thank you very much for joining us, telling us about the perspective that you had last week.

Steve Munatones: Thank very much. Mike Lewis: Thank you.

Peter Busch: Alright, that's Mike Louis and Steve Munatones from OpenWaterSource.com joining us here. That's it for today's show. I'm Peter Busch for reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.